Footage from the documentary ‘Orwell: 2+2=5,’ directed by Raoul Peck. ENTRACT FILMS
LE MONDE’S VERDICT – WHY NOT
Raoul Peck, 72, born in Port-au-Prince, is an accomplished, fully political filmmaker. He made a name for himself directing such powerful and insightful works as Lumumba. La mort d’un prophète (Lumumba: Death of a Prophet, 1991) and I Am Not Your Negro (2016), as well as narrative films that confronted totalitarian horror, like L’Homme sur les quais (The Man on the Shore, 1993). With Orwell: 2+2=5, Peck has embarked on a new project that aims to both honor the visionary impact of George Orwell’s 1984 (published in 1949) and to systematically analyze the machinery of globalized horror.
The novel, which is set in Britain 30 years after a dictatorship is established following a nuclear war, drew inspiration from both Nazism and Stalinism to portray a fictional totalitarian world – one that our own increasingly seems to resemble.
It goes without saying that the film’s scope is vast. A voiceover quoting Orwell runs constantly and eventually feels unnaturally superimposed onto the footage. The narrative builds up layers, continuously shifting back and forth between different eras. Here, we see an account of Orwell’s final years on the Isle of Jura, Scotland, as he writes his novel; there, we revisit his youth and intellectual journey, as he comes to comprehend the cynicism of the Empire and its colonial system while serving as a soldier. And, across a montage of disparate archival material, Peck puts Orwellian themes to the test against the backdrop of the contemporary world – which he argues is also being subjected to the oppressive grip of economic, imperialist and totalitarian powers.
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